By Hot on the heels of the No Gun Ri anniversary comes this article from Choe Sang-hun that once again goes into the killing of civilians in Korea during the Korean War. I don’t have time to do a full rebuttal of this article like I have done on past articles on this topic but I will just leave readers with some quick impressions I had after reading the article instead.
- Choe Sang-hun’s articles on this topic are not sensationalized like Charles Hanley.
- Civilians killed by US strikes may have been intermingled with communist insurgents.
- The ethics of war during the Korean War is vastly different from now. How many civilians died from US bombings during World War II? I don’t see compensation claims coming from Europe which begs the question of why is Korea different?
- Intelligence was extremely spotty in the early days of the war thus accurate targeting of the North Koreans were impossible especially with the number of NK soldiers wearing civilian clothes and South Korean communist insurgents wandering the countryside.
- The Korean Truth & Reconciliation Commission conducts spotty historical work at best as I have demonstrated before.
- I would have to see the documents and research the history myself before drawing conclusions about what happened in each event mentioned in the article since the T&R Committee’s track record is so poor.
- Choe made a journalistic error by claiming the 2005 protests to topple the MacArthur Staute in Incheon were about left wing activists trying to bring attention to civilian casualties during the Korean War. Here is the stated reason for tearing down the statue from the protesters chairman and it has nothing to do with Korean war civilian casualties. It is surprising Choe makes such an error that is so easy to fact check.
- The MacArthur protests were organized by Kang Soon-jeong who was later arrested and jailed for being a North Korean spy.
- The MacArthur Statue protests were also linked to protesting the US’s response to 9/11.
- There is no way the US government should pay any compensation money. If these civilians want compensation it should come from North Korea and China.
- I think the effected civilians should sue the government of North Korea and if a court rules in their favor then assets of North Korea can be frozen to pay compensation to the victims. I would be interested to hear a legal opinion on this idea.
- I’m sure actually holding the aggressor nation responsible for the tragedy of the Korean War, would make for quite a novel idea.
2:33 am on July 24th, 2008 1
One other possible cause: With the U.S. air campaign against NORK rail lines and road networks (tunnels, bridges, etc), those servicing such became targets. Local populations were press ganged into repair and transportation crews. The former, obviously working on bypasses, and clearing debris, with the latter toting up to 80 lb cargoes on their A-frames. Nork and Chinese logistics relied upon their own press-ganged versions of the Korea Service Corps. That would have put a fair number of civilians in harms way.
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9:44 am on July 24th, 2008 2
When do you make a distinction between enemy held territory with targets of strategic value that happen to have civilians in them? Prior to the Inchon invasion, it was decided to create a diversion to create the impression that the allies were going to land at Kunsan. B-26s from the 3rd BW were sent to take out the train station and railyards at Iri (now Iksan). In doing so a number of civilians were killed. To this day one activist group use this as an example of “crimes” against the Korean people.
BTW they could have forgotten about the feint. It was later discovered that Kim Il Sung had been provided information of the invasion at Inchon beforehand by spies in Japan, but for whatever reason never exploited it.
This same problem comes from “targets of opportunity” — mainly trains or truck convoys. When does a civilian engineer or truck driver pressed into service against their will become military?
Where will compensation stop?
The slickey boy technique was to send a young kid to run in front of trucks to slow them down so others could jump on the rear and rob them. All drivers were instructed to put the pedal to the metal and speed up instead. If they were innocents, whoops. But who cared as most were orphans.
In times of war, all the rules go out the window.
That’s why the Truth and Reconcilliation Committee turns my stomach. They are the remains of the Roh administration that are trying to get in the last digs before they are cleaned out like rats infesting the kitchen walls.
Yes, I am a very bitter old man… These are the same guys that awarded “freedom fighter status” and pensions to NORTH KOREANS who fought against the South in the Korean War.
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11:36 am on July 24th, 2008 3
As we know already, it’s all part of the chillingly effective campaign to teach the younger generations that the U.S. was the real “aggressor” in the Korean War.
It’s like the bullsh*t happy feely story that North American liberals tell kids- “the native Americans were such peaceful happy people until the evil Europeans showed up!”. Yeah, right!
Yes, I know it’s comparing apples & oranges, but it’s the same sort of bullsh*t lie that Koreans- North & South- were one big happy family, living peacefully until the evil white men came.
Sadly though, they’ve gotten a large part of the population to believe that the U.S. is to blame for all of their misery.
Add to that, if any idiot believes that if the U.S. was stupid enough to actually pay compensation, then all would be forgiven and that would be the end of it, is truly dreaming. That would just be the opening of the floodgates.
Anyway, we don’t hear the core Korean government calling for compensation payments and I’m quite sure we never will- at least until some lefty idiot gets back into office.
Time to axe the “truth & reconciliation committee” because it is pure bullsh*t top to bottom!
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11:59 am on July 25th, 2008 4
Hillary Clinton was right on when she said that Koreans were suffering from “historical amnesia.” I kind of see this as the inevitible result of their myth making. They have been indulged for a long time in their distortion of history, mostly towards the Japanese but lately focusing on the US, so it is really a case of the chickens coming home to roost.
I say withdraw the USFK and let them stew in their own juices. Korea will eventually settle in their traditional role as a satellite of China, so in the end all the money and risk for Korea will be wasted.
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1:42 am on August 5th, 2008 5
Does the commission ever investigate North Korean crimes? A good reporter would ask.
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